


circling all round the sun

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [5]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Crushes, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, Scars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2019-10-28 12:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17787425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Ruben isn't 100% sure how friendship works: he's supposed to dream about his platonic friends and cuddle them during movie nights and want them to play gently with his hair even though he usually hates people touching him, right?[Companion piece to Your Body Is A Triangle, getting a little more in depth on Ruben's Romantic Epiphany]





	1. Chapter 1

Ruben’s ma has always said he keeps too much bottled up inside, and she wasn’t wrong, but secrets were a luxury that died with him the day the police showed up at the front desk of his little Jamaica hotel, if not before. There’s no privacy in recovery, especially not living under the same roof as someone. Even now in New York Ruben can’t seem to go back to keeping things under lock and key, not when it comes to conversations with Ma. In fact, he looks forward to telling her things, whatever little updates he brings to their near-daily Skype calls. Or in today’s case, big updates.

“Vanessa knows about Jamaica now too,” he informs her.

“Oh, you told her?”

“Eh, I cheated, I got Usnavi to tell her when I wasn’t there the other day. But I spoke to her about it this morning. She hugged me. So did Usnavi.”

Twice, in fact. They did it again when he was saying goodbye later that day, the second time in a relaxed, easy way as opposed to a _sorry to hear about all the stabbing_ way. He’d left the bodega dizzy from it.

“It was nice,” he adds, in case that didn’t come across.

Ma looks surprised, but she’s smiling too. “Ah, Rubén! That’s wonderful, ¡qué maravilla! My brave, brave boy.”

“ _Ma_ ,” he says, because sometimes she talks to him like he’s a kid who was just very well-behaved at the dentist rather than an adult man, but if he’s honest with himself that’s probably exactly why he always wants to tell her things now. It’s like when she used to put his school reports up on the fridge, except instead of _incredibly advanced for his age_ his achievements now are things like _caught a train without having a panic attack_ or _made small talk with the piragua guy_ or _did a social interaction with friends that most other people can do without even thinking about it._

They’re interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming, and Mercedes yelling out a greeting.

“¡Mercedes!” Ma calls back. “¡Decirle hola a tu hermano!”

“¡Hola mi hermano!” Mercedes says, coming into the living room and perching on the arm of the couch. “Mom, I’m going out with Clare for a bit, okay?”

“Sí, sí, just don’t forget to text me every hour.” Ma takes Mercedes hand and pats it fondly. “Where are you going?”

“To the dork convention?” Ruben interjects, and Ma tuts at him.

“Yeah, I’m going to pick up your birthday present,” Mercedes says. Ruben nods, _well played._ “Don’t think they’ll sell Usnavi and Vanessa standees though, sorry bro.”

Ruben makes a bewildered face. “I don’t get it.”

Mercedes rolls her eyes. “Y’know, because you talk about them and nothing else twenty-four seven?”

“I do not,” Ruben says. “I talk about them a normal amount.”

“Uh-huh. _Hey, Ruben, do you like my new haircut?“_ — and then she puts on a nasally nerd voice — “ _nnnyeehhh that reminds me, Vanessa has hair! Wow, Usnavi and Vanessa are so cool. Did I tell you Usnavi said ‘hi’ today, it was so funny and awesome and—_ ”

Mama taps Mercedes’ hand more warningly this time. “Hush, you. It’s good to hear so much about Rubén’s friends.”

“Yeah, yeah.” There’s a faint doorbell sound on their end. “Oh, Clare is here!”

“Don’t walk back on your own, cariño.”

“I won’t.” Mercedes leans down to kiss Ma’s cheek, then blows Ruben a kiss too. “Adios, Ruben, try not to be a loser your whole life, okay?”

Offended, Ruben retorts, “well, _you_ try not to be a…a—“ but she’s already heading out the door before he can think of what she should try not to be. “Dammit!”

The Skype call wraps up pretty quick after that and Ruben sits in his now-quiet apartment, scratching at his beard in thoughtful concern. Does he really talk about Usnavi and Vanessa that much? Too much? Was Mercedes making fun of him for the sake of comedy or did she mean _take the hint that we’re all sick of hearing it?_

Ruben’s not great at hints. Or subtext. Or people. What Ruben is good at is spotting patterns and drawing conclusions from gathered evidence, which is how he has learned over his lifetime that there are many ways to tell someone you want them to be quiet. For Paola and Mercedes it’s teasing. For other people, it’s the barely-audible impatient sighs, the way that invested replies taper off to dismissive _mmhm_ s. There’s the polite ones who make up excuses, so Ruben can never tell whether someone is genuinely saying “I have to pick up my sister from the airport” or if they just mean “please let me leave now”. On the opposite end, there was Jason, who had no time for politeness and would just start talking while Ruben was still halfway through a sentence. And so long ago he can hardly remember it, there was his dad, who skipped subtext and went straight to “shut up, Rubén” with a shake of Ruben’s shoulder or a push against his back whenever he didn’t get the message fast enough. 

It’s harder to tell when he’s boring Ma: she’d never tell him to shut up, and she tries her best to hide it when she’s lost interest, so he just has to guess. But he hasn’t been watching how he talks to her recently because he’s not been doing much science so he figured he wasn’t exactly at risk for going off on an overexcited tangent. Apparently he was wrong.

Shit, and if he misses those signs regularly with his own _mother_ then who’s to say he’s not been missing the same ones with Usnavi and Vanessa and they’re just too kind to tell him? Who’s to say they don’t go home and complain to each other about how he’s always in the store, that he doesn’t get the message to give them some space, making himself comfortable sitting on the counter like he lives there when what they want is to be left alone. Probably intruding on their couple time, probably being totally creepy, oh _god_ , it was so much easier not having friends. If he even is a friend, and not just the unwanted tagalong.

This is what his old therapist would call spiralling _._ The overdrive section of his brain says _obviously_ _the only way to fix this is by dying on the spot_ which he ignores because it’s not helpful and besides it says that about most mildly difficult situations that he doesn’t want to deal with. Instead, he turns back to his old crutch, Avoidance Through Science. He’ll just throw himself into working until Usnavi and Vanessa forget he exists entirely. A healthy coping mechanism that has definitely never steered him disastrously before. There’s plenty of other stores in New York where he hasn’t outstayed his welcome that he can go get coffee from, and the rest of the time he can hide inside until he eventually dies alone. Perfect.

It’s harder to focus on his work than it used to be, of course. There’s so much he’s got to relearn, it all comes back to him piecemeal so he can remember minute details of incomprehensibly dense theory but has forgotten whole chunks of foundational shit that he’s known by heart since high school. He’ll read for an hour then realize he’s been skimming for anything that will help him find an Ian cure even though he already found that a year ago. He’ll make coffee and wonder for long daydreamy stretches what Usnavi and Vanessa are doing.

On the fourth morning of this he gets a text from Usnavi that says _you ok? aint seen you in a while, let me know if you need anything,_ and immediately gets sidetracked for about two hours googling _how long do you wait before texting someone back_ and compiling the answers to see if there’s a general consensus, but there’s too many variables depending on the relationship to the texter and the topic of conversation and if it’s time-sensitive plans. Too much margin for error, so he turns his phone to silent and speed-reads through a couple journal articles to forget about it. 

Which he does, until his buzzer goes several hours later. Instead of jumping under the table to hide - he’s getting good at this _people know you exist and live in a fixed location_ thing - Ruben checks his phone. Three missed calls from Usnavi and one from Vanessa. Oops. Eight hours is clearly too long to wait. 

"Oh, you ain’t dead then _,”_ Vanessa says through the intercom when he answers.

“Not this time. Come on up.” While she’s heading up the stairs he runs to his bedroom and quickly switches out his sweatpants for jeans, pausing at the mirror to hurriedly fingercomb through his hair. At the knock he double-checks that he remembered to do his fly up then opens the door and says “oh! Vanessa!” in what he hopes is an _I’m so casual_ _I almost didn’t notice you_ voice, as if he didn’t already know she was here from the intercom.

She raises an eyebrow at him and says, in her own weak version of I’m Extremely Casual, “aite, Ruben, everything cool?”

Ruben frowns. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

She gives him a vaguely shifty glance, as if she’s hoping he won’t notice her looking at him. “Uh, because we ain’t seen you in days just after a big emotional revelation and you ain’t returned none of our calls?”

“Oh, yes, that. No, everything’s fine, I was just doing some work, there’s a lot to catch up on with the, um, chemistry, and…information, and everything. Experiments! And journals. Very busy.”

Vanessa puts her hair up in a ponytail, taking her time with adjusting the hair tie and pulling gently on little strands to loosen them.“So it isn’t…well, Usnavi thought maybe the hugs freaked you out?”

“No!” he says. “No, I—I really like the hugs, actually. Sorry. I’m not avoiding you. The hugs are very good.”

“Bueno, then you’ll come back to the store again soon? Usnavi’s gettin’ worried.”

Ruben presses his thumb to his mouth to keep his laugh in. Vanessa’s as transparent as glass sometimes, even to him. “Ah, that’s why _Usnavi’s_ the one at my door now, is it?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Vanessa says, grinning. She takes her ponytail out again, hair cascading down her back accompanied by the faint scent of something fruity and clean. “So you gonna invite me in for coffee or what?”

And that’s another one he’s added to his list, exclusively since meeting Vanessa: there’s a way to tell someone to be quiet that actually means _keep talking._ Ruben likes that one the best.

***

Today when Ruben comes into the store, instead of the hugs that are turning into a regular greeting, Usnavi waves both his hands in the air and says “my arms fell off!”

“You might wanna get a second opinion on that. What’s happening?”

“Usnavi’s all rashy,” Vanessa explains. Usnavi holds his arms out to Ruben demonstratively: the insides of his elbows to halfway up his forearm are covered with a patchy, scaly rash, and some pink marks and pin-dots of red where he’s obviously been itching at it.

“Ohh, that looks _uncomfortable_ ,” Ruben says with a hiss of sympathy, taking Usnavi’s arm to look closer. “Eczema?”

“Yeah, I used to get it all the time as a kid,” Usnavi says. “Mamá always made me go to bed with socks on my hands so I wouldn’t scratch in my sleep. It ain’t usually this bad now I’m older though.” He lolls tragically over the counter, gives Ruben the abandoned-puppy eyes. “Pity me?”

“Do not pity him, he used dish soap in the shower,” Vanessa says. “I told him not to, but he ain’t never listen to me and now he’s a gross reptile boy and it’s his own fault. What happened to that body wash I got you last time, babe?”

“I ran out, dish soap was all I had in the apartment. I thought just _one_ shower with it wouldn’t be too bad.” Usnavi scratches his arm. Vanessa slaps his hand away. “Ow, hey! So what’s your recommendation, doc?”

“Don’t pick at it,” Ruben tells him. “Hydrocortisone cream will help with the itchiness. Don’t shower with dish soap. And listen to Vanessa next time. I’ll send you a bill in the mail for the checkup.”

“Fuck that noise, you get _one_ free coffee,” Usnavi says. “Sorry for making you get all up close and personal with my disgusting lizard skin.”

“I worked in a hospital, I’ve seen way worse,” Ruben says, and when they aren’t looking he pulls his cuffs down far enough that he can hold them in place. He sees worse every day. 

Later in the privacy of his bedroom, he takes his sweater off and observes himself despondently. If they thought a little bit of eczema was gross, what would they think if they saw Ruben? What would anyone think? Ruben’s never cared about whether or not he’s attractive before, so he never knew that something so simple and superficial as being ugly can feel so incredibly bad.

His therapist back in Philadelphia had brought up the possibility of scar reduction treatments. For several weeks he’d wore silicone scar sheets: there was so much surface area to cover that he sometimes felt like he was a bunch of meat wrapped in plastic packaging ready to ship off to a deli, but he probably has those to thank for him not looking even more grotesque than he already does. There’s a limit to how much they can help. She had talked about microneedling and corticosteroid injections and skin-graft surgery.

“ _No_ ,” Ruben said. “I’m not getting surgery. No way.”

“That’s understandable,” she said, “the other treatments are much less invasive, I just want you to know all possible choices in case —” but by then Ruben’s thoughts were a whirlwind of hospital lights and dialysis machine and sharp, shining tools in surgeon-steady hands, and after that breakdown he wrote off the idea completely. Besides, she’d said most doctors wouldn’t do any treatments till more than a year has passed, and Ruben honestly hadn’t expected to survive that long.

It’s been more than a year now. 

After ten minutes of self-indulgent crying he pulls himself together and pulls his sweater back on and pulls up a search on his laptop. It’s disheartening. Most of these are in his budget, sure, but there’s recovery times and the need for repeat treatments and it’s hardly been any time since he stopped having to go in and out of hospital every other day. He’s still exhausted at the thought of it, to the point he can’t even face looking for a new therapist yet, and he wouldn’t have anyone to go with him. He’s not ready to go through it all again yet. 

When he calls his ma to complain she says, “well, have you been using coconut oil like I said?”

“Ma, I keep telling you, if there was any evidence for coconut oil working on scars I would have found a proper study on it by now. It’s just placebo.”

“You said that about vaporu helping with colds too but I know you still use it every time you’re sick,” she says. “Just give it a try, what have you got to lose?”

“But _medical science_ says _—“_

“You would listen to medical science over your own mother who raised you? Rubén Manuel.”

Dammit, he’s never been able to stand up to a maternal guilt trip. And she’s right, what does he have to lose? Worst case scenario, he looks exactly the same with a new tropical scent.

A few days later, standing in his bathroom with a towel wrapped round his hips and holding a little glass jar of reasonable quality coconut oil Ruben sees that he has been an idiot and the real worst case scenario is the application process. He lets a little of the solid white oil melt onto his fingertips and rubs it into his left arm, intensely embarrassed by what he’s doing. It’s not slapping a silicone dressing on, or the emotionless contact of cleansing which at least gets mitigated by a washcloth. It’s something uncomfortably close to intimate: an interaction with his own body that’s prolonged and unnecessary. It feels like vanity and false hope. 

Just like he knew, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the scars after the first week. It probably never will. And yet he keeps doing it, every single day: first out of stubbornness, to really prove that it’s a waste of time and money, but it becomes ritualistic fast, revulsion mixing with familiarity that wells to a raw surge of feeling. Performative though this act of self-caring is, working over the tightness of the hypertrophic markings is a touch unavoidably close to intimate. Ruben _wants._

What that means, he isn’t sure. He wants for things to be different. He wants for the backbone of his understanding of everything that he’s always found in the double-blind and peer-reviewed to be thrown out the window. To hell with what evidence suggests, coconut oil is the secret untapped cure for even the deepest physical damage and Vaporub is more effective than any antiviral. If he abandoned evidence could he increase the possibility of finding in that same one-step miracle place someone that he doesn’t shy away from and who doesn’t recoil from him, who would press down on his wounds just to try to smooth them away not because they’re disgusted by his looks but only because they wish things were different too. Someone to see what he is and keep coming back to him even knowing there’s no clean-skinned beautiful version of him waiting for them in the future. Ruben will be what Ruben is and that means he’ll never get what he wants from anyone else. But maybe it does mean something to get some sort of kindness from himself, in this small post-shower moment of undeniable embodiment.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: NSFW, masturbation, as well as some related introspection about how PTSD/trauma affects Ruben's sex life.

Usnavi’s such a magnet for mishap that he should come with his own personal safety manual, so when Ruben walks into the store and Usnavi’s up on tiptoes on a ladder trying to stock the top shelf of one of the big built-in wall units, his first instinct is to rush forward in case he needs to provide an emergency soft landing. And he’s proven right, too, because as Usnavi turns with a bright “hey there!” the ladder wobbles dangerously under him. Ruben grabs it with one hand and pushes Usnavi’s back with the other so that he doesn’t topple off it completely, then offers his hand to help him to safer ground.

“Gracias, what a gentleman,” Usnavi says, bouncing down when he reaches the second-last step. “I swear Pai built those shelves so high just to fuck with me, ain’t no other reason for it.”

“Wishful thinking?” Ruben suggests, belatedly remembering to let go Usnavi’s hand and surprised at how he’d done that without even thinking about it. “Maybe he was hoping you’d be a basketball player.”

Usnavi laughs. “No chance of that.” He leans across the counter and flips the framed photo by the cash register that Ruben’s only ever seen the back of to show a beautiful, cheerful woman with extremely 90’s bangs, and a kind-looking man with a familiar nose, familiar eyebrows. He’s holding the cutest baby Ruben’s ever seen, a doe-eyed little doll of a thing so tiny Ruben almost thinks it’s just a bundle of pale yellow and blue fabric till he picks the picture up to take a closer look.

“Oh my god, is that you?! You were so _small_!”

“Exactamente, never did catch up with my age,” Usnavi says. “My folk called me _pequeño_ and _little one_  right through high school. Did nothin’ for my street cred, and I ain’t got much of that to spare to start with. Probably still woulda been callin’ me it even when I was forty if they was still around.”

It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Usnavi always refers to his parents in past tense but the subject’s never come up directly so Ruben’s never dared say anything about it before. Tentatively, he asks “When did they…?”

“Just before I turned eighteen. December first. They got sick, both of them.” Usnavi motions around himself at the store. “That’s how I wound up running this place.”

Seventeen. Christ, that’s so young. He shouldn’t have brought it up. “I’m sorry.”

Usnavi lifts and drops one shoulder. Goddammit. Ruben’s sworn never to get emotionally invested in other people’s problems again, but one look at the brittle edge of Usnavi’s faint, fading smile and he knows that’s a resolve he’d break in an instant if there were anything he could do to fix it. Poor Usnavi. 

He looks down at the picture still in his hands. “You look just like your dad,” he says.

Usnavi’s smile goes warm again. A reciprocal glow ignites in the depths of Ruben’s chest. 

***

What was tortuously slow progress at first now sometimes seems to run a momentum so fast that it’s like clinging onto the side of a train. He sees a sad, dying plant someone’s thrown out with a bunch of flytipped junk on the sidewalk and feels so sorry for it that he has to take it home. The sight of it already budding the first hints of new leaf growth after a week of careful tending sprawls quick out into the rest of his apartment, with a second plant then three then a whole jungle, more than he ever owned before. Forcing meals down his throat just to survive turns into legitimate hunger turns into overindulging, too many coffees in a row at Usnavi’s bodega or snacking on the meals Camila Rosario sometimes sends round even when he’s just eaten, because he’d forgotten till now that food can taste so amazing.

With more speed than he’s ready to keep up with yet, reminders start to whisper that bodies can feel good in other ways, can crave things other than food. Manageably abstract at first, it’s only the noting of physical sensations like clinical observations in the shower or while he’s moisturizing, an occasional deeper interest stirring and gently fading back down again like a passing breeze. Slowly, though, things get more insistent, and Ruben gets more confident, just enough that one night he thinks _maybe I’m ready to try doing something about this._

It’s…anticlimactic. In a very literal sense. The first time probably just because he only tries for a minute then stops, feeling unaccountably guilty like he did when he first discovered masturbating as a teen: _I don’t know why but I’m sure this must be against some kind of rule_. But even as he gets braver with it, it seems like his sex drive got to a certain point and decided _actually, this is as far as we’re going_ , because he can’t fucking finish no matter how long he tries for, until eventually he gets bored and leaves it for another time, and repeat every attempt. Which, to be fair, is a lot better than the _my own existence as a physical being makes me want to vomit_ he’s been living for some time, but he’s definitely missing something. 

The problem, he thinks, is that he doesn’t know _what_ to think: there’s nothing his mind wants to settle on so he’s limited on material. Not the hookups he had in college which seem flat and a little sad now. Not porn, he’s not willing to navigate that minefield of potential triggers. Definitely not what used to occupy his more x-rated daydreams: sometimes where Ruben thinks he might be thinking about kissing someone, or thinks he might be imagining someone with him, he can almost see features through the obscuring fog around his thoughts and he has to back away, terrified of who it might be, of learning just how fucked up he maybe is. He’s over that fantasy. God, he hopes he’s over that fantasy.

_Don’t think about him._

By now his own hands all over himself is nauseating again, but stubbornness insists he can damn well learn to like this too even if it kills him, even if the frustration is making him carelessly heavy-handed to the point he’s wincing. It’s not the good kind of pain. Or he’s just not ready for the good kind of pain again yet. Or maybe it was never anything good, just another sign that Ruben was broken inside well before Jason got to him. 

_Don’t think about Jason_. 

Too late. Now he’s thought the name the face comes along with it and he knows the night’s a lost cause. Son of a bitch.

In a vain attempt to chill out, he abandons his rumpled bedsheets and makes himself tea instead. It takes everything in him to keep from throwing the mug at the kitchen wall. It isn’t _fair_. Can’t he have anything without having to scratch and scrape and scrounge his way there? He can feel good, but not that good. He can imagine ecstatic but its out of his reach, somehow worse than it being utterly unthinkable. It was honestly simpler when the idea of sex just meant _freak out and shower away the skin-crawling for two hours_. 

_You win this one_ , he thinks tiredly, but instantly rebels against it. No. They’ve won too much. So he can’t have this specific thing, fine, but Ruben’s learning how to enjoy things again and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let one setback be a victory for _them_. He downs his tea, burning his mouth on the still-scalding liquid, then slams the mug on the table with determination and takes a mixing bowl out of the cupboard. The rest of the night he spends baking, till his kitchen’s covered in flour and batter and he’s all out of ingredients. Then he sits surrounded by his efforts, eating way too much while his kitchen clock blinks 4:37 AM at him, because he might never have an orgasm again but at least Jason hasn’t managed to ruin cake for him.

***

“Wait, where did you say we’re going?”

“It’s confidential,” Vanessa says. She’s leaning against the frame of Ruben’s apartment door, one long leg stretched out to keep the door from swinging closed on her while he gets ready. “Top secret mission.”

Ruben starts to shrug his just-donned jacket off again. “Oh, then absolutely not. My secret mission days are over.” 

“Starbucks mission,” Vanessa amends. “They got new summertime drinks in I wanna try.”

“Okay, I’m back in.” In an uncharacteristic moment of taking charge, he says, “Can we go to one downtown? I know there's others closer but I need to start getting used to the trains for when I start work.”

“Sounds good.” She steps aside to let him past. “Less chance of Usnavi findin’ out that way, anyhow, don’t need him gettin’ all jealous on me.”

Ruben pauses in the middle of locking the door. “Is he not cool with us hanging out without him?”

“What? No, he’d probably shit himself with happiness about that, he just don’t like it when I go to Starbucks. Coffee envy.”

“Really?”

“Or, y’know, corporations suckin’ the life out of the city ruinin’ small business gentrification whatever.” Vanessa shrugs. “All I know is one time I was drinkin’ a pumpkin spice latte when I went to see him and he wouldn’t let me in the store til I’d finished it. And then he wouldn’t kiss me till I brushed my teeth.”

“Wow.”

“Right?”

Practicing public transport seemed like a good idea until he remembered too late that Saturday is a nightmare for doing things, and it’s no less busy when they get out of the subway and inside the Starbucks, so by the time they’re waiting to one side for their order to be up Ruben’s already wondering if he needs to come up with an excuse and bolt. The only thing stopping him is the idea of facing the train again before a caffeine break. The milk steamer hisses aggressively and he automatically brings his hands up to his ears for a second before he can stop himself. Should’ve brought his ear defenders but no, then he’d have to explain them to Vanessa and that’s too complicated. Anyway, it’s only normal volume in here. He really shouldn’t need them in public, he knows. It’s just been so long since Ruben got coffee anywhere other than Usnavi’s, where yes, it is very often noisy, because anywhere that Usnavi is automatically hits a certain decibel rating but that’s a different kind of noise and not an unpleasant one.

“Hey,” Vanessa says, tilting her head over at a table in the corner. “Redhead over there, what’s her story?”

Ruben smiles. This is part of an ongoing game they started playing to break tension. Being left alone to socialize without Usnavi as a backup was something he’d dreaded happening since he started getting introduced to more people, and especially with Vanessa. It’s a lot easier to get swept up with Usnavi, who has a supernatural ability to instantly spin a conversation out of anything from _check out my new socks_ to _so what do you think the meaning of life is?_ Vanessa’s intimidating one-to-one, or at least she used to be. The first time Usnavi had to go out back of the store and left the two of them together Ruben had nearly thrown himself on him and yelled _take me with you!_ After two agonizingly silent minutes pretending to look at their phones, though, Vanessa had nodded out the window at an elderly passer-by and said conspiratorially I see that old lady all the time and I’m like ninety percent sure she’s a coke dealer”. By the time Usnavi came back both of them were laughing their asses off over some dumb, elaborate scenario they’d come up with. Now _what’s their story_ is their go-to icebreaker whenever conversation dies, or a diversion when things start to get uncomfortably real.

Trying to be subtle, Ruben scopes out the redhead Vanessa’s talking about. Alternating looking between her phone and then the door. Nervously tapping foot. Two drinks on the table even though she’s the only one there. “She’s waiting for her boyfriend. He’s been cheating on her. She’s poisoned his coffee and she’s going to blame it on the barista and run away to start a new life on the Starbucks hush money she gets.”

“Yours are always so _dark_ ,” Vanessa says, taking their drinks from the barista. “Thanks. She never woulda paid for his coffee if he was the one cheatin’ — oh, get that free table — she’s obviously waitin’ to break the news to him that she’s got an STD off of sleepin’ with his brother.”

“Oh, Vanessa. You naive optimist.”

“What can I say, I like to think the best of people.” She drops into her chair and sips her iced coffee, with an alarmingly satisfied noise. “Mmm! _God_ , that’s fantastic. Usnavi don’t know what he’s missin’.”

“His black coffee is way better than here,” Ruben says, loyally. He dips his finger in the top of his cup to lick some whip cream off it. “But I do like a sugary abomination every now and then.”

“I hear you. Wanna try mine? It’s awesome.” Vanessa holds her cup out towards him, straw first, so he can’t say no. He leans forward to take a sip.

“Mm, that’s pretty good,” he agrees, then notices the weird look on Vanessa’s face. “What?” he says, before instantly realizing _oh, I should have taken the cup off her and held it myself, you fucking dork_. Embarrassed, he offers his own drink to distract her. Then Vanessa does the same thing, leaning forward and holding the straw but not the cup. A strand of her hair falls down and brushes his arm. They make accidental eye contact when she leans back and then both of them hurriedly inspect their cups with deep interest.  She’s left a lipstick mark on his straw. Should he do something about that?

Vanessa tucks her hair behind her ears and clears her throat and says, “new theory, she _has_ poisoned the boyfriend’s drink, but it’s so her and the brother can run away together.”

“Mmhm,” Ruben manages, but doesn’t come up with any witty additions, so he just occupies himself with his drink and tries really hard not to think about the fact that Vanessa’s lipstick is kind of on his mouth right now.

***

“I thought Sonny and Benny were gonna be here too,” Ruben says, on coming into Usnavi’s apartment and seeing that Friday movie nightattendance is whittled down from five to three. He’s sort of relieved - he’s got a lot more practice hanging out with just Usnavi and Vanessa and might even be quite good at it - but also he put a lot of effort into mentally preparing himself for a bigger social event and it seems like a wasted effort now.

“They both had stuff come up,” Usnavi says. “I meant to tell you in case you didn’t wanna come after all, but I forgot.”

“And here I was all dressed up for a party,” Ruben says, indicating his distinctly unpartyish sweater. 

“Yeah, sorry about that, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Vanessa says. 

That’s usually a way of saying _you shouldn’t stay,_ right? “Should I leave?”

Vanessa shrugs. “Do you want to leave?

“If you want me to?”

“Only if you want to. Or you could stay.”

“ _Should_ I stay?”

“If you want to stay?”

“Jesus Christ, it’s a real one-act play every day with you two,” Usnavi says. “Ruben, _I_ want you to stay. Is that cool?”

Ruben beams. “Yes! Uh, yes, that’s very cool.”

“Super cool,” Vanessa says dryly, but she gives him a genuine smile, then she cuffs Usnavi round the back of the head, says “snacks!” and scurries off to the kitchen before he can retaliate. 

Usnavi says “she’s the worst girl I’ve ever met” with both hands clasped over his heart, then leads on to the living room and points Ruben to the couch. Ruben sits, while Usnavi kneels on the floor in front of the TV and pulls out a stack of DVDs that he drums out _shave and a haircut_ on. “I ain't got no Netflix so we only got my little pirate treasure trove of DVDs. On a legit DVD player even though nobody uses them any more, or so Sonny tells me, so welcome to the fuckin’ dark ages but it ain’t broke and I _am_ broke so that’s what we’re getting. Probably ain’t as good quality as what you’re used to, sorry.”

“No problem. Um, did you get my text?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I know all my movies like the back of my hand, these ones are the safe choices,” Usnavi says, checking off his fingers as he lists “no knives, no guns, no hospitals, no blood, no big fight scenes or explosions. I looked up the warnings online too just to make sure.”

“You checked all that for me? That’s really nice of you,” he says, touched. He hadn’t wanted to ruin the night for everyone so he’d only messaged beforehand to ask to avoid anything with knives specifically, and hoped that he’d be able to weather any of the myriad other smaller triggers that crop up every time he tries to watch anything. The extra effort to accommodate him is all Usnavi.

Vanessa, coming back in with the snacks and sitting on the other end of the couch, says, “don’t give him that kinda credit, he just wants an excuse to make us watch Disney movies and terrible romcoms.”

"I don't need no excuse to watch Aladdin," Usnavi says, squirming himself in between them on the sofa. "This is cozy," he declares, which is one way to put it: there's no space at all between them. Vanessa turns around so she's leaning against Usnavi with her feet dangling over the arm of the couch. Usnavi stretches both his arms over the back of the sofa, one behind Vanessa and one behind Ruben, and says "alright, folks, we got movie sign!", then kicks his bare feet out in front of himself happily.  Ruben would think the enthusiasm's just to put him at ease about having so many restrictions even for a movie night, but as soon as the music starts it’s clear Usnavi’s having an absolute blast. Vanessa rolls her eyes at him, but joins in on the song once she’s pushed: Ruben’s heard Usnavi singing before (with wildly varying levels of talent) but Vanessa’s voice catches him so off guard he says “holy _shit_ , Vanessa!” She smirks at him and doubles her efforts.

“You gotta join in too,” Usnavi tells him. “It’s a team effort.”

“Alright, I’ll be the carpet.”

“Ruben, no.”

Ruben just wiggles his arms in his best imitation of a flying carpet. Usnavi sighs, then spends the entirety of Whole New World passionately bellowing _tell me princess now when did you last let your heart deciiiide_ right into his face like that might encourage him to join in. Vanessa leans over Usnavi to belt her parts directly at Ruben too, except where Usnavi’s eyebrows are doing the emoting of seven people in one she keeps her face as blank as a mannequin, with an impressively dead-eyed stare. Ruben’s giggling so much by the end he couldn’t join in if he wanted to, and tries to remember the last time he laughed so hard it hurt.

Once Aladdin’s over, Vanessa says, “okay, we’ve let the children have their fun —“ jerking a thumb at Usnavi like she wasn’t just as on board as he was “—but I think we should watch a movie for adults now.”

“It’s not porn,” Usnavi says to Ruben as he goes to change the disc. “I just want to be very clear that when Vanessa says we’re watching adult movies it’s not porn.”

“That’s a pity,” Ruben says, and Usnavi makes a weird sound like a very quiet bomb going off and drops the DVD.

Despite the fact she chose it, Vanessa obviously and unsurprisingly isn’t much of a romantic comedy girl, so between her making disparaging comments and Usnavi furiously defending it (“just because you’re dead inside don’t mean it ain’t a good movie, Vanessa”), Ruben actually has no idea what’s happening in the film for the first half. But as the evening progresses everyone loses steam and ends up just watching with a few comments here and there, so w ith just Ruben’s luck, this means that nobody’s making diverting commentary during the inevitable sex scene. 

The camera goes telltale soft-focus and he’s immediately, overwhelmingly aware of his own face, sternly warning it not to have any kind of expression, or to move in a way that might imply…well, anything, really. Objectively the scene isn’t even particularly wild, that generic kind of cinematically censored fluff, but there’s enough sighing and moaning on the soundtrack that Ruben’s blushing like crazy anyway. Mostly because it seems weird to be watching this with Usnavi so close to him that he can feel their thighs pressed against each other, and it only gets worse from there because he hears the faint sound of kissing and it’s definitely not from the movie, feels movement as Vanessa and Usnavi shift to be able to reach each other better. Usnavi’s arm bumps Ruben’s. A lurch twitches low in his belly. Oh, Jesus, he hopes they haven’t forgotten he’s here, he’s got a whole head full of scripts but never thought to come up with one for _hey guys_ _please don’t start having sex while I’m still on the couch with you_. He bites the inside of his cheek and focuses so hard on the television that it hurts his eyes.

It’s probably not that long before they stop kissing, though it for sure felt like an eternity to Ruben, and probably not nearly as intense as he was imagining it, not that he was imagining it, but he does his best to keep looking at the screen just in case. Something draws him against his will to glance at them anyway, and he does a mental double-take. Usnavi’s taken his hat off. It feels exactly how Ruben thinks it would feel if he’d looked next to him and found that Usnavi suddenly had no pants on. 

“You have a mohawk,” Ruben says, surprised. He feels like he should avert his eyes again, but he’s sort of fascinated by it. Not what he would have guessed for Usnavi but it suits him: more cute than edgy, and the shape of it draws attention to his cheekbones, and the sculpted arc of his eyebrows. Does he pluck them? It looks like he might. Stop staring, Ruben.

Usnavi fluffs his own hair and smiles. “Yup! Courtesy of our best ex-hairdresser.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever pictured you having hair.”

“You thought I was bald?”

“No, it just never occurred to me the hat was removable.”

“Don’t go tellin’ everyone it is, now, that’s my greatest weakness.”

They settle back into watching the movie. After fifteen minutes there’s a sudden extra weight against Ruben’s shoulder and it’s only then he notices how quiet the room’s gotten.

“Oh,” he says. “Vanessa, Usnavi’s asleep on me.”

Vanessa laughs. “He does that. I bet he musta missed the end of most of the movies we watch. Just shove him off.”

“I don’t wanna wake him up if he’s tired.”

“He’s always tired, he won’t mind,” she says flippantly, but when Ruben glances at her she’s giving Usnavi a tender, slightly concerned look that Ruben’s 100% sure he’s not supposed to see. Well, if Usnavi’s always tired then he _definitely_ doesn’t want to disturb him. He tries not to breathe too disruptively and wills his arm to be more comfortable. 

Usnavi finally wakes up during the credits, peering around confusedly like he’s forgotten where he is. There’s a crease mark on his cheek where it had been pressed against Ruben’s sweater, his face a little pink like he’s too warm.

“Good nap?” Ruben asks.

Usnavi yawns. “Mmhm. ‘m sleep on you?”

“Little bit. I don’t mind.”

“‘kay.” Taking that as permission, Usnavi tightens his arms round Vanessa and curls up leaning against Ruben’s arm again for another five minutes til Vanessa dislodges herself and says, “honey, you got work tomorrow, we should get you to bed for real.”

Usnavi sits up slowly, looking disappointed. “Aww. s'Ruben stayin’?”

“Uh,” Ruben says.

“On the couch, I mean,” Usnavi says quickly, sleepy eyes going wide. “It’s late, you don’t gotta walk home.”

“I…” Ruben hesitates. He hates waking up in unfamiliar places, but for some reason he’s still hesitant to leave. “No, I should go. Thanks for having me.”

“Any time,” Vanessa says. “Text us when you’re home safe.”

She says it in a way that implies she probably says it automatically to anyone walking home at night, but Ruben’s so struck by the casual concern that he can only nod, and he thinks about it on repeat the entire way back, and about the weight of Usnavi asleep against him, and the residual heated embarrassment of being so close to them while they were kissing.

At home he tries to sleep but his mind’s restless, in a way that won’t settle, his body’s restless too, his senses aware of everything around him. He rubs his fingertips over the clean cotton sheet under him, and then his foot, and it feels like a loud, pleasant humming in his nerves. With the delayed understanding that’s kind of common now he knows himself less than he used to, he recognizes what mood he’s in. Huh. He hasn’t dared try for a few weeks, worried that he was inadvertently turning it into a self-punishment but something compels him to chase it tonight. Maybe he’s just relaxed from having one of the best evenings he’s had in ages.

He explores tentatively over the safety barrier of his pajamas first, as if waiting for his own permission, or his own reassurance that he’s going to be kind to himself, and when that seems okay, when that’s not enough, slides his hand into his pants and starts fucking his fist slow and gentle and right in a way that Ruben hasn’t felt for so long. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking about, but he’s finally certain it’s not _him_. It feels too clean for that, it feels too safe, more of a sensation than a narrative: the screen inside his brain is the soft orange light of the lamp in Usnavi’s living room and the flickering of the television, and he feels the cool breeze from the open window in his lungs and the faint brush of his cotton pajama pants against his now-aching dick and pleasure starting imperceptible but soon expanding out like ripples, past the point he usually hits a block, then further than that.

“ _Yes,_ ” Ruben sighs. Climax when it hits is subdued, a soft wave passing over him, not an earthquake, but it might be the most amazing thing Ruben’s ever felt anyway. He stares at the ceiling with his breath held for a long time afterwards, like moving might disrupt the whole scene, then he thinks _I just did that_ and starts laughing in disbelief, hiding his face behind his hand. He doesn’t even think to send a mental _so go to hell_ to any of his ghosts like he usually does when he finally wins something back from them, because he doesn’t think of _them_ at all. And when he goes to sleep that night, he doesn’t dream of anything except the sensation of a soft orange light shining in the very depth of his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Nightmares, dissociation.

“I know, I know,” Ruben says, pulling into the near-empty parking lot of Central High School. “I had a work emergency, I’m just arriving.”

“About time,” Paola says. 

Ruben picks up his phone out of the cupholder and turns it off speaker, putting it back up to his ear just in time to hear Mercedes say, “- tell Mom you were late picking us up _again_.”

“What’s she going to do, ground me? I’m 28.” Slamming the car door behind him, he squints through the gold late-afternoon sun at the school gates, conspicuously absent of sisters. “You’re complaining about me being late and you aren’t even out here?”

“Mercy lost her gym bag,” Paola says. “We’re trying to find it now, we’ll be two minutes.”

“I’m gonna tell Ma you were late.”

“What’s she going to do, ground us?”

Ruben laughs and hangs up, leaning back against the car door in the hazy sunlight. His mind wanders through work, their findings on newest cases and Jason’s latest impatient rant and the few extra tweaks he needs to make on Blackout. He could swear he’s only daydreaming for five minutes but when he looks around it’s dark. That…doesn’t seem right. It’s supposed to be hours till sunset. And why aren’t the girls out here yet?

Paola doesn’t pick up when he calls. He sighs, pocketing his phone, and heads into the building to look for them.  Ruben went to school here too, once upon a time, what feels like a different life. It’s familiar in here, right down tothat almost forbidden, after hours vibe that reminds himof staying late to work on his early college applications, all the days of extra credit here and extra work there that got him ahead of the game. Some things never change. 

But no, not quite familiar. There’s no cleaners, no teachers, and no Paola or Mercedes.  Nothing tangible at all, in fact. The lights seem brighter than they should, washing out the details of the surroundings into a simple monochrome of searing bright overheads and indistinctly dark squares of windows lining long, long corridors, longer than any he remembers from… whatever this building is. Independence Memorial? MIT? He can’t remember where he is, he can’t remember _why_ he’s here. Was he looking for someone?

No. Wrong way round. There’s a creeping feeling up his spine, the feeling of a shadow moving out of sync with his step: someone’s looking for _him_ , and he has to get out of here before he finds him, before-

“Oh,” he says, staring at the second hand on his watch where it’s sweeping round to impending 8:25 PM, and he breaks out into a run. Throws open doors to classrooms and labs and hospital rooms, desperately trying to retrace his steps. There’s no time, there’s no _time,_ where’s the way out, where the _fuck_ is— there! Round the corner and straight ahead of him, two big emergency exit doors. Thank god. 

He practically throws himself into them to fling them open, expecting cool evening air but instead he’s met with a wave of stuffy warmth. It’s Jamaica nighttime heat. It’s the smell of burning in the air. It’s a dark room, a single dying lightbulb.

“No,” Ruben whispers, backing away, staring into that warehouse room, that place he never wants to go back to, that place he can never stop going back to. “ _No._ ”

From the corridor behind him, from so close behind him _,_ Ian says “didn’t I tell you not to come back? Ruben, Ruben, Ruben, what will it take to make you _listen?_ ”

A hand against the back of Ruben’s neck, fingers pressing in hard like he’s a scruffed cat, and there’s nowhere left to run.

_-_

Ruben wakes up from dreaming about corridors with his body in his new life and his mind still mostly in the past. In his new life like the old, he deals with it the same way as he’s always dealt with everything: just keep moving forward, even when life constantly drags you back to where you started.

It isn’t so hard to function like this, not like it is with a full flashback. The body takes care of it all on automatic. Ruben doesn’t even have to look at himself getting dressed, doesn’t have to control his limbs picking up his keys, walking him down the street to Usnavi’s bodega like he does almost every single day. He’s a half-asleep passenger in his own head. When he gets to the store, somebody else will control his tongue for polite smalltalk with Usnavi and coffee and then steer him right back home. Pretend everything’s normal and nobody will even notice. Nobody ever does.

Except at the bodega it’s Sonny behind the counter who waves and says, “what’s up, Ruben?” and Usnavi isn’t anywhere in sight. It’s only the tiniest change in the expected routine. Still enough that whoever’s in the driver's seat of his malfunctioning brain bails out in confusion and leaves Ruben in charge of the wheel again, totally unprepared. “Oh. Um. Oh. W-where’s Usnavi?”

“Rude,” Sonny says. “Just keepin’ an eye on the place, Usnavi’s upstairs makin’ some calls to the super about Senora Lopez’s busted lights, he said he’d help her get it sorted this mornin’.”

Ruben blinks at him. It feels like he has to individually coerce every synapse in his brain to make it happen.

Sonny frowns. “You okay, man? You look a bit -” and he make a wavy gesture.

“I… yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I was just, uh, where’s Usnavi?”

“He’s…upstairs, are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

Ruben considers the question. Considers the fragments that make up a sentence, all those odd and disparate syllables, those little sounds that supposedly mash together to make a meaning but really aren’t any more than arbitrary soundwaves which people spend all day flinging at each other like it’s anything more than just static, anything more than just the verbal version of the numb and tingling feeling in his palms. He stretches his fingers out then clenches them back together, then exhaustedly says “…What was the question?”

“Oookay, come on.” Sonny jumps the counter and starts herding Ruben towards the back, keeping a careful distance then darting in front of him to open the storeroom door and gesture inside. “You wait in there. C’mon, sit down, I’ll go get Usnavi for you.”

Meekly, Ruben takes a seat in the uncomfortable little folding chair that Sonny indicated and as the door closes, he suddenly feels very alone. Just Ruben, tiny among the looming shelves of messily stacked boxes. He pulls his feet up onto the chair and curls into the darkness with his face shielded by his folded arms until there’s a soft knock and Usnavi saying, “hey there.”

“Hi,” Ruben says, into his knees.

“Sonny says you look like you’re havin’ a bit of a day. You okay?”

After taking a second to stack up all the details of his life and balance them out on a scale of Okay versus Not Okay, Ruben shakes his head.

“Oh, Ruben,” Usnavi says. “You wanna talk about it?”

Nothing to say he hasn’t said a million times. Ruben shakes his head again. 

“Wanna just hang out in here for a while till you feel better?

Ruben hesitates, then nods. He doesn’t want to be at home - he doesn’t want to be anywhere, really, but it feels safe in here, and Usnavi’s voice is so, so kind.

“No problemo,” Usnavi says. “Look, I hate to do this but the rush is startin' and I gotta keep the wheels turnin’ out there. You stay in here as long as you need, okay? Make yourself at home. I’ll come check in on you later.”

The door clicks closed. Ruben stays where he is, peacefully dissociating. Could be anywhere, could be any time. He’s had worse flashbacks than this. Forehead on knees and exhausted in an uncomfortable chair he could be in the waiting room of the Jamaica clinic, the shabby chair in a kitchenette in a hotel room, the private room at the airport at Montego Bay. Occasionally Sonny or Usnavi come in to get stock, always announcing themselves with a knock before they do. Ruben knows that when he gets back to himself he’ll be intensely embarrassed about this. for now, its just how things are.

Knock, in a faintly familiar and jaunty rhythm. Usnavi again. Ruben can hear him tiptoe over and set something on one of the shelves near him.

“You holding up okay?”

Ruben twitches his fingers in acknowledgement.

“I brought you coffee and a taco. You should really try and have somethin’ to eat, it’ll help.”

When the door closes, Ruben tiredly lifts his head to contemplate the paper cup. Time is blurry. Could be the orange juice brought to him by the kind volunteer nurse who helped patch his lacerated body up. Could be Cleo’s grassy, minty herbal tea that she gave him to try and help his sleepless nights in that hotel. Could be the water that washed down the lorazepam that the doctor accompanying his police escort gave him at the airport to sedate him for the flight back to America. Ruben never knows when he is. It happened and it never stops happening. He moves on and he stays in place. He runs and he runs and he always ends up back in that room.

When he takes a sip of coffee, though, he knows he couldn’t possibly be anywhere except Usnavi’s bodega.

***

Living in Washington Heights, it would take active effort to _not_ spend time with Usnavi, what with the store and the overpowering friendliness and all. Friendship with Vanessa progresses a little differently, but in its own way just as good. It’s always a pleasant surprise for Ruben to walk into the store for his morning coffee and find that she’s there lounging against the counter, an unexpected bright spot in the day. Ruben never asks her to hang out, of course, Vanessa is way too busy for someone like him. She’s lived here forever and she’s so awesome and has so many friends. Which is why it’s so nice she still finds time for Ruben even outside of Usnavi. Texting him, a few lunches together. She’s even come round to check on him once or twice when he’s been holed up in his apartment too long. 

That’s what Ruben assumes is happening when she messages asking if he’s at home today because she’s in the neighborhood. He’s been working through some journals, he’s been a little tired, hasn’t got out very much this week. Really he should say no and stick to his work plans, but secretly and somewhat shamefully, he kind of misses her. Even though it cant have been more than a week since he last saw her. He should probably try and have more than two friends, because that is just tragic. Still, who is he to deny spending time with Vanessa freakin’ Garcia? 

So he invites her round, then goes around tidying up his apartment, tries to sort his hair out, changes his shirt three times and waits for her to show up.  When she does, he realizes that maybe she isn’t there to see if _he’s_ the one having a bad day: at the door, she says “hi,” like she’s throwing a punch, and storms past him to drop herself on his couch and scowl at the wall.

“Uh, come in?” Ruben says, to the empty corridor she leaves behind then follows her. Perching cautiously on the arm of the couch, he says, “so what happened?”

Vanessa shoots a look like a lightning bolt at him and snaps, “what are you talkin’ about? Why do you assume somethin’ _happened?”_

Ruben recoils and stands back up. “I-I’m sorry.”

She sees him wince away from her and makes a startled little hissing noise. “Aw, no, Ruben, shit, _I’m_ sorry. Who the fuck am I, comin’ into your apartment and yellin’ at you?”

“It’s fine,” Ruben says. “I don’t mind.”

In fact he does mind, a hell of a lot. But grumpy as she can be sometimes, _this_ isn’t Vanessa’s usual style at all. She’s no Jason Cole. That must mean there’s something going on. But if he’s done something to piss her off he’s got no idea what it is and she doesn’t look like she’s going to say anything any time soon, so he picks up his notebook and takes it to the armchair to pretends to be working, doodling little pictures of leaves into the margins and watching her out of the corner of his eye. She thumbs aggressively through one of the journals on his coffee table then puts it back down and folds her arms around herself, looking very small and tired.

Oh. She isn’t mad, she’s _sad_. Definitely not Vanessa’s style. No wonder she’s touchy. Ruben keeps drawing patiently, more intricate and pretty curls of leaves and vines until eventually Vanessa bursts out into the silence with “I went to my mom’s place today.”

Ruben has never once heard Vanessa talk about her family before. He had honestly started wondering if she had any. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Vanessa picks up the journal again, flipbooks the pages rapidly against her finger. “She thinks after 24 years I’m still naive enough I don’t know what vodka smells like. _It’s just water, Vanessa!”_

_“Oh,”_ Ruben says, putting the notebook down. “Fuck. That sucks.”

“She always lies about it,” Vanessa says viciously. “Always. She told me she was clean. I don’t know why I was surprised. I _wasn’t_ surprised. So I left early and I was gonna go to the store but then I ended up texting you instead. I dunno, I guess I just wanted to be somewhere that I could feel like garbage for a while.”

“You wanted garbage and you thought of me? Flattering.”

Vanessa’s mouth twitches at the corners. “Got it in one. Look, you’re busy and this is all dumb anyway, I know I shoulda gone to Usnavi about it, but…”

“It’s difficult talking to him about family?” Ruben guesses.

“In more ways than one.” She tilts her head so her hair hides her face. “Usnavi’s parents fuckin’ _adored_ him, you know? They woulda moved mountains for him. You’ve seen him with Sonny, he gets that from them. And I’m happy he had that but all this, how my family is, it don’t make no sense to him. He always wants so badly to fix everyone’s problems for them and make everyone happy, but he don’t know what to do about this, so it just makes him upset and I couldn’t deal with that today.”

“You want to feel bad for a while,” he says. “But you don’t want to have to do it on your own.”

She doesn’t respond at all, which Ruben assumes means he’s right. He knows he's right, because he knows exactly how she feels, although he can’t fathom why she’d choose him out of everyone to be the person she chooses to hang out with for this. He feels kind of honored that she did, though. Vanessa might have more friends than Ruben can imagine, but he’d bet his PhD that this topic isn’t something she shares with just anyone.

He stands up. “Well, don’t wanna half-ass the misery, do we? I’d better make us coffee so that we have enough energy to feel bad properly.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes, then gives him a proper smile. “You and Usnavi are birds of a fuckin’ feather.”

“Ha! I wish,” Ruben says, and wonders what, exactly, he means by that.

***

Running and running through memories of hospital corridors, Jason’s house, school and college and god knows where. Still no exit, never any fucking exit and the footsteps behind him getting closer and closer. Ruben’s lungs are burning, his heart feels like it’s about to explode. He ducks into the next doorway he sees, leaning his whole weight to keep it closed while he catches a breath.

He cringes as he hears “Ruben!” from the room behind him, but it isn’t Ian’s voice this time.

“Usnavi?” Ruben turns, still panting, intense relief immediately replaced by an even deeper dread. Bad enough when it’s just him. “Usnavi, what the _fuck_ are you doing here?!”

Usnavi looks bemused and says, “this is my store?”

Of course it is, where else would they be, but that’s worse, that’s so much worse than if he were at Independence Memorial. Ruben can’t let Ian _here_. He takes hold of Usnavi’s hand and starts dragging him to the front door. “Come on!”

“Hey, what the fuck,” Usnavi says, resisting.

“He’s coming, we have to get out of here _—“_

_“_ Ruben?" Vanessa asks, coming out from behind the shelves. Oh god, she’s here too, how could this get worse? Ruben grabs her wrist and babbles, “we have to go we have to go we have to go right _now!”_

Vanessa holds steady on her ground, trying to pull him back, her free hand held up placatingly. “What are you talking about? Go where?”

“He’s _looking_ for me,” Ruben says, near tears with frustrated desperation. Why won’t they listen? “He’s here, he’s right out there and he’s gonna find us—“

“Ruben!” She squeezes his hand. “You’re okay. Nobody’s out there.”

Ruben looks between them, tears spilling down his cheeks. They look so calm, so confident, they’re holding his hands. “He’ll find us,” he repeats.

“Not here,” Usnavi says, pulling him towards the counter. “You don’t need to go anywhere. Just stay here.”

Chest heaving, Ruben shakes his head and then for some reason, he says, “okay,” and instantly forgets he was ever running at all.

-

Ruben wakes up from dreaming about safety into the clammy, damp air of pre-thunderstorm, and all the aesthetic side effects that come along with it. It takes him half an hour longer than usual to try and get ready and somehow he looks four times as Einstein as he did before he showered until he finally says fuck it and goes to drown his sorrows in a breakfast taco.

“Oh, boy,” Usnavi says with a grin when he walks into the store. “That’s a lot of look.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ruben says. “It’s the humidity. It always does this if I let it grow too long.”

Vanessa comes up to him, tugging one fluffy cowlick-turned-ringlet straight. It sproings back when she lets go. “Did you brush it?”

“Of course I did.”

“Rookie error,” she tuts. “You’ve had curls your whole life and nobody ever told you not to brush them? Didn’t you grow up in a house full of women?”

“They all have straight hair. What _else_ am I supposed to do with it?”

Vanessa lifts her hand again then pauses to ask, “can I—?” and then taking his confused shrug as a _go ahead,_ she shoves both hands right into Ruben’s riotously wild hair and starts fixing it up. Ruben holds his breath and shoots an _oh god what’s happening here_ look at Usnavi, who just laughs and leans his chin on his hand to watch.

“Bueno,” Vanessa says, after what feels like an eternity of ruffling, the entirety of which time Ruben forgot to let go the breath he was holding. “Much better. You just needed a little bit of a stylish touch.”

“You might be able to manage that but I don’t think I ever will,” Ruben says.“I should just cut it all off. It’s hopeless.”

“No, I think it looks good when it’s messy,” Vanessa says. “Don’t you, Usnavi?

“Oh, definitely,” Usnavi says, reaching out and moving Ruben’s bangs a little himself. “ _Muy_ guapo.”

Ruben's breath stops again, all three of them frozen there in a suspended moment until they all jump at the sound of the door being kicked open.

It's Sonny, humming a salsa tune to himself as he comes in. He stops in his tracks and looks around. “I feel like there’s a weird vibe in here.”

“Vibe? Que vibe?” Usnavi says. “I don’t feel any vibe. Hahaha, you’re loco, Sonny. If anyone’s vibin’ in here I sure as hell ain’t know nothin' about it, Vanessa, you vibin’?”

“No idea what you're talkin’ about,” Vanessa says, intently looking at her fingernails.

“Nnnnnn,” Ruben says, and goes to hide in the cereal aisle.

***

“So, cariño,” Ma says, “what was it you wanted my advice on?”

“Uh,” Ruben says, trying to find an non-incriminating way to phrase it.  _Ma, hypothetically, if an extremely beautiful girl with a boyfriend kisses you on the cheek because she thinks you are her boyfriend who, incidentally, also happens to be beautiful, and then he also kisses you on the cheek and you think they’re just kidding around but then it happens again every time you see them for a week, and it’s confusing but you don’t know why it’s confusing because they are what you might call your best and only friends if adults used phrases like ‘best friend’, which probably they don’t, if that happens then what…just overall what, I guess, and also how do I, and what is this, and help me? Hypothetically._

“General social etiquette question,” he says. “What are the rules about cheek kisses? As in, when and how many?”

“I suppose it depends who it is,” she says, and then raises her eyebrows teasingly at him. “Who has been kissing you, Rubén?”

He thinks about saying Vanessa and/or Usnavi and his ribcage tries to collapse in on itself to stop him _._ “…Camila.”

“Ah, I see. That’s easy, just treat her exactly like you would your Tía Sara.” 

That’s actually very good advice, if only Camila were the problem here. Absolutely useless in his actual situation but he can’t fault Ma for that, even Ruben doesn’t know what the current situation is or why he’s even asking questions about it. He might be awkward but he’s still Latino, it’s not like kissing cheeks is new to him, but... well, it definitely feels new. Has he really been that disconnected from a normal social life for so long that even normal friendly greetings have turned into a puzzle for him?

Ma adds, “you’d think as a mother Camila have told you to get a wet comb through that hair of yours. I hope you haven’t been outside looking like that.”

Ruben toys with a lock of his hair which, instead of damping down flat, he’s recently found himself leaving in its naturally curly cowlicky state. He looks at himself in the window-in-a-window of the Facetime call. “It looks good when it’s messy,” he says.

***

Those long long corridors shut safely away behind him but for reasons he can’t recall Ruben’s still insisting he has to go, now, he needs to leave.

“Come on,” Usnavi says, leading Ruben to the counter. “Just sit down and chill a minute, ¿bueno? For me?”

“Fine,” Ruben says, defeated. He jumps up to sit in his usual spot and instead of walking away Usnavi stays right by him, stands so close that he’s almost positioned in between either of Ruben’s legs. 

Ruben feels breathless, and it isn’t from running. He doesn’t even remember running. “I…I really should leave,” he says. 

Vanessa sits on the counter beside him and places a hand on his leg and says, “why?”

“This isn’t, this can’t—“

“It could,” Vanessa says. She brushes his bangs out of his eyes and even though her hair is as perfect as always, Ruben reaches out to tuck some of it behind her ear. “We could.”

“I should go,” he breathes, and Usnavi in front of him says, quietly, “or stay here.”

“I _could_ stay,” Ruben murmurs. Vanessa’s hand slides higher up his thigh and Usnavi leans his hands on the counter either side of Ruben’s legs, looks at him all intense and promising and —

-

Ruben wakes up with a sharp tug in his belly but no memory of what caused it. It drives him to distraction all morning, following him right out the door and down to the store. He’s sure there was _something_ he was in the middle of, an equation he cant quite solve.

“Earth to Ruben,” Vanessa says, jumping on the counter next to him and clicking in front of his eyes. “What planet you visiting today?”

“You doin’ okay there?” Usnavi asks, all sympathy and soft eyes. “Do you wanna go sit in the backroom again for a bit? I put a cushion on the chair just in case you needed it again.”

Ruben laughs. “No, Usnavi, I’m fine. I just had a…a dream last night that I keep thinking about.”

“Nightmare?” Vanessa asks. He’s never told them that he has nightmares. It isn’t surprising that they seem to know anyway.

“No, just weird. Or at least I think it was.”

“You think?”

“That’s the thing,” he says. “I can’t actually remember it, but I feel like I need to. It’s like it’s just there, right on the tip of my brain’s tongue.”

Vanessa drums her fingers thoughtfully. “That’s a bad mental image,” she says.

“Wish I didn’t remember my dreams,” Usnavi grumbles. “It’s bad enough tryna get my shit together in one reality. You know today’s the second time this week I dreamt about getting ready for work and then woke up and thought I already got dressed and nearly walked right out of the door? Only a matter of time before I come to work without pants on at this rate.”

“Wouldn’t get no complaints from me,” Vanessa says, and Usnavi blushes a bright and delighted shade of pink. He hands Ruben’s drink over, glances at him with his eyes as dark as the coffee in the cup and then looks away as he goes even pinker. Vanessa smirks smugly at the opposite wall.

De ja vu, flashback’s kinder cousin, clatters insistently round Ruben’s skull. He has no fucking idea whatit’s trying to tell him.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me extremely happy and encourage me to write more! 
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com/)!


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